Wood, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-0433-2972 (2021) Can independent regulatory agencies mend Europe’s democracy? The case of the European Medicines Agency’s public hearing on Valproate. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24 (4). pp. 607-630. ISSN 1369-1481
Abstract
In 2017, the European Medicines Agency staged the first effort at democratic innovation within transnational European Union institutions directly influencing the transnational regulation of medicines. Alongside its public consultation on epilepsy drug Valproate, European Medicines Agency included a public hearing involving representatives of patients and testimony from those directly affected by the medicines. Using this critical case study, the article argues from a deliberative democratic perspective that although the hearing in many ways exhibited the traditional shortcomings of elite-driven deliberation, it also demonstrated unexpected and surprising deliberative qualities. Based on new quantitative analysis of the hearing using the Discourse Quality Index, and qualitative observation of over 4 hours of footage, the article argues European Medicines Agency’s hearing facilitated equitable access and influence of patients and members of the public who had previously been excluded from decision making on drug distribution. These findings provide important new evidence of the deliberative democratic value of public hearings.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | deliberative democracy; democratic governance; democratic innovation; European Union; institutions; medicines regulation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 04 Mar 2022 12:14 |
Last Modified: | 05 Dec 2022 16:51 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/13691481211054319 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:184276 |